GR Mailbag: Through Rain, Sleet And Viruses
Posted on Monday, July 29 @ 12:13:14 Eastern by Duke_Ferris
| We've Been A Little Sick |
From: "Simon St-Pierre"
Subject: Mailbag
I really think it's stupid to call this a weekly mailbag. The current
one has been up for at LEAST two weeks now. If you at GR are too lazy
to check the company inbox, stop being lazy. If you're on vacation,
have fun. If people aren't writing, well they just suck, cause there's
plenty of stuff to write about.
Thanks.
Simon
P.S. Job form guy sucks |
Dear Samna,
Indeed, the past few weeks
have been a little difficult on the mailbag, mainly because we have
been dealing with evil, horrible viruses like this
one and that
one that have flooded the GR mail server, making it almost impossible
to check general mail without completely shutting down the office. A
valid excuse? Who knows. But it's the truth.
At any rate, we'll be doing
our best to get back on track with weekly (as opposed to biweekly) mailbag
updates. Just to prove it...uh, well, I guess we're proving it right
now. :)
- GR |
| Our Own Private Ape Escape |
From: "James"
Subject: how do you get all your cheats?
i dont see how its possible. like for warcraft 3 which came out on the
3rd. by the 4th you already had all the cheats for it. how do yall do
this? its not like you have a billion people sitting in GR offfices
just typing stuff in and another team at some other place just typing
stuff up. do the game companies send you the cheats?? |
Dear James,
It's our code
monkeys. They're amazing. Despite not having opposable thumbs, they
manage to figure out all kinds of cheats before actually getting copies
of games. We're not entirely sure how they do it, either, but so long
as we give 'em lots of free bananas they just keep doing it.
The only problem with them
is when they get mad and throw poop at the screens. But it beats having
to deal with nerds.
-GR |
| To All Would-Be Picassos... |
From: "Ember Jensen"
Subject: ...art?
Greetings GR,
As I visit your site almost exculsively for the reviews,
forgive me if I am asking something addressed in some part
of the page that is not immediately obvious to someone viewing
the main page.
I noticed that in your mailbag feature you say
"send letters and art ...". Art?
Say I sent you some old videogame related drawings of mine
that could feasibly be classified as 'art'
*coughbyblindhipposcough*. As I've never seen an art feature
on the site,I was wondering what would you actually
do with it..?
Post it up on a wall located somewhere in
Berkeley? Use it to clean unsavory places? Make festive
confetti of it? Use it to light a funeral pyre?
Fold it into a paper airplane and load it with a payoff of
Umbrella's delicious bioweaponry and toss it over the Beligum border?
Point and laugh?
Y'know, these things tend to concern artists
(and those who impersonate them).
Thanks for your time,
Ember |
Dear Ember,
Though we may seem like lowbrow
smartasses, we're actually highbrow smartasses, or at
least mid-brow smartasses, or even smartbrow lowasses. We're confused.
But damn it, we know art,
and we'd never "make confetti" out of it or "use it to
clean unsavory places." Even ridiculous pieces like this
gem deserve praise, though we won't exactly be framing it.
-GR |
| It Must Be Belgium's Time Of The Month |
From: "Susan Ryan"
Dear GR
What's up with Belgium?
Sincerly,
Ryan |
Dear Ryan,
We honestly
don't know. I mean, everything was fine with Belgium and GR for a good
year or so. We would sometimes go out bowling together and this one
time, Belgium got so drunk it stood up on the bar and starting imitating
Canada! It was awesome, and a little weird since it was only drinking
7-Up.
But then one day we got this
nasty message from Belgium. "Hey GR, you wankers, how could you
tell my wife those nasty things...blahblahblah...you're never coming
over for dinner again..." and so on and so forth. It was really
kind of confusing.
So now we're fighting again,
though we'd really like to make up with Belgium by offering to buy them
Luxembourg. Them and their Grand
Duchy!
-GR |
| I ROM So Far Away.... |
From: Sancho Vazquez
Subject: if the cops don't see it, its not illegal... right?
This is something that I have been debating with my
fellow gamers. I honestly don't think that anyone
really knows the true legality about downloading roms.
I read in a Ninteno Power mag that roms are illegal.
Period. No Downloading, no nothing. And that the
socalled "24 hour rule" isnt true. So are the feds
going to storm my house and throw me in a jail cell
with some smelly guy named bubba because I happen to
enjoy playing the games that I grew up with? Also, its
not like these companies lose cash because of roms
from older systems (NES, SNES, genisis, etc). What do
you think?
-Zaphod |
Dear Zapped,
The legalities behind ROMs
and emulators are inconsistent and somewhat mysterious, but it's pretty
much accepted that it's illegal to 'own' ROMs for longer than 24 hours.
We have no idea why, since it seems that if they're going to allow the
ROMs to exist in the first place, there seems to be no good reason to
try to monitor how long people keep 'em on their computers.
No, the feds aren't going
to throw you in jail for playing Ms. Pac-Man on your PC. But
if anything happens, you don't know us, we weren't there, and it isn't
our knife.
-GR |
|
E3 2013 has been very silent for me. There's tons of media, but most of it buzzes past my ears without them catching the important keyword that my ears are fine tuned to receive: "PC" or "Personal Computer". Microsoft, Sony, EA and Ubisoft have all shown their cards...